


(You And Me Could Write A) Bad Romance (Dance Break)

by lasergirl



Series: Environmental Control [3]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dating, Deaf Character, M/M, OCD Character, deaf!Clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-06 05:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasergirl/pseuds/lasergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil comes home to find Clint dancing in his underwear. And it's awesome. This takes place after "Self Preservation" after plot circumstances have Clint move in with Phil. Environmental Control-verse where Clint is a bike messenger and Phil works in an archival lab.</p><p>**</p><p>Accessiblity/sensitivity issues:</p><p>Phil has OCD and is coping with it well. He is mostly touch-phobic with influences of germ-phobia, with an aversion to surfaces that have stuff spilled on them (coffee, pollen, etc). **I will warn if it ever becomes necessary for story purposes to have him ceasing to cope**</p><p>Clint is (in his words) "deaf as shit" and wears hearing aids sometimes, but not always. He speaks and signs (and texts, terribly).</p><p>Story notes are at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(You And Me Could Write A) Bad Romance (Dance Break)

The elevator beeps at his floor, and Phil waits for the doors to open fully before he steps off. He can hear music coming from somewhere on the floor, but it isn't until he's standing in front of his own door that he realizes it's coming from inside his own apartment. The bass thumps against the door as he puts the key in the lock and pushes the door open. Dance music floods out into the hall, electric and jumpy and full of energy.

Clint's bike is standing in its alcove in the hallway, carefully buffered with towels so it doesn't scrape the walls, and there's a trail of discarded clothing leading in towards the living room. Phil follows the purple Chucks one by one to a tshirt, a pair of cutoff shorts, long-sleeved undershirt, leggings… 

… and Clint, with a towel in his hands, dancing to Lady Gaga in his underwear in the middle of the living room. He's completely oblivious to Phil's appearance, caught up in a lascivious shimmy and full ASL-and-lip-sync routine. Phil watches him, unable to repress the bubble of happiness that rises so suddenly in his chest. The music is so loud it's pulsing through his body, he can feel it vibrating in his lungs and vaporizing the stress of the day.

Clint does a little sideways hop and a King of Pop-worthy twirl and the start of a moonwalk, when he catches a glimpse of Phil out of the corner of his eye and freezes, the look of abandon on his face shifting rapidly to embarrassment.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Clint signs, glancing around Phil's living room as if he was intruding. "Lost track of time." He grabs the stereo remote and the music stops abruptly, the silence ringing between them just as loudly. 

"Clint, I-"

"No, I'm sorry, okay, I'll just-" Clint mutters, he stoops to pick up his clothes from the floor and Phil can see his ears are bare, no hearing aids, so he puts his hand out and Clint stops, looks at him.

"It's fine," Phil says, signing to reinforce his words. "I like it."

"But it's really loud." Clint looks confused. 

"Isn't that why you like it?"

"Yeah, 'cause I can feel it that way, but I don't want to flip you out or anything, you like it quiet here. It's your space."

Phil palms his forehead in frustration. "You live here too. You can do things you like."

"You like Lady Gaga?"

"I've never heard her like that," Phil smiles a little bashfully, "but honestly I think your presentation is a whole lot more visually attractive." He traces his hands in the air in front of him, mimicking some of the hand signs that Clint had been dancing to. "Graceful. Kind of hot."

"It's because I'm in my boxers, isn't it?" Clint grinned.

"Extra bonus," Phil admitted. "But seriously. Yeah, it's a little loud. But I've never… felt music like that before. I don't go to dance clubs. I mean, for obvious reasons." Because the mere idea of being in a loud, dark space with complete strangers gives him panic attacks, but Clint knows this and the understanding shows on his face.

"It's not gonna bother the neighbours, is it?"

"It's not that loud in the hall and the walls have really good insulation." Phil shrugs off his suit jacket and hangs it on its proper hanger in the closet, then pulls out a small plastic packet from a box on the top shelf and waves it triumphantly. "Oh, and I have earplugs from the last time there was construction in the building."

Clint's grin is the best thing Phil's seen all day. He checks where his phone is jacked into the stereo, remote control in hand. "Okay, so this is my own personal compilation of awesome, choreography by me, booty-shaking is totally encouraged."

Phil puts in the yellow foamy earplugs carefully, lets them muffle the world around him. Clint's watching him intently, but patiently.

"Okay?" Clint's voice is muted, mostly a rumble and Phil nods, signs 'yes,' back to him and Clint switches the stereo back on, hits the playlist on his phone and grins.

The song starts slowly, with a treble waver and a minor rumble of percussion, and Clint starts signing, at first too fast for Phil to follow. But he positions himself directly in Phil's frame of vision and makes his hand movements deliberate, a little over-emphasized. The repetition starts to sink in, and Phil starts to move to the beat. He stutters a few times, making nonsense signs in transitions, but as the lyrics and movements become more familiar he starts to get it. He's grinning, and bouncing on the balls of his feet, Clint's throwing him attitude in the signs and he's catching it and throwing it back, and it just feels so perfect that he allows himself to get lost in the music. 

And Clint's moving selflessly, muscles bunching and flexing across his shoulders and chest, and Phil realizes he's still mostly dressed and this should feel awkward but somehow it doesn't, it just feels normal like two people having fun together, and that's pretty much the best thing ever.

Clint breaks off signing to complete his previously-aborted spin and moonwalk, where he ends up bumping into the edge of the couch and as the music spins to an end, he's falling over himself and laughing and Phil's laughing too, and then they're both sprawling on the couch, faces a little red and sort of breathing hard as the song fades out.

"Wow." Phil says after a moment. Clint's feet are wedged under the cushion he's sitting on, and he's nearly too close, but not quite. Phil can feel his own pulse beating in his throat without a thread of panic in it. He brushes the pads of his fingers together, wondering if he can touch Clint. He's so close, just right there.

Phil wavers, but then he finds the courage and puts his hand on Clint's leg, halfway between knee and ankle. There's a strip of hot pink physio tape delineating a strained muscle and he gently traces the line between fabric and bare skin. Clint's leg is warm and smooth.

Clint just lets him maintain the touch, doesn't move closer or pull away. He's just watching Phil's face, seeing the determination in his slightly furrowed eyebrows.

"I know, right?" Clint rumbles, and Phil remembers he's still got the earplugs in but it doesn't really matter. "I kinda love it. "

Phil's not really sure there are actual words for the way he feels, not words he can say out loud, but he folds in the second and third fingers of the hand that's touching Clint, so he can run his knuckles along Clint's shin.

"Oh," says Clint, and beams back at him, open and honest, mirroring the gesture Phil's making with one of his own. "That too."

END

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: 
> 
> I think ASL music videos are my new favourite thing. Here are two links to Lady Gaga songs (both of which I think are pretty Clint-appropriate):
> 
> Bad Romance (the song that's playing when Phil walks in)  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Rttt5BMXo
> 
> Edge of Glory (the song that Clint and Phil dance to)  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdZxxk_spU
> 
> The sign Phil makes at the end:  
> http://ih0.redbubble.net/image.13185071.1678/fc,550x550,white.u3.jpg


End file.
